31 DAYS OF FAITH NO MORE: “THE LAST TO KNOW”

Spurred by a lazy crossword clue in The Onion (36 down, four letters: “Faith No More’s only hit”), MetalSucks contributor Anso DF dedicates every single day in August to celebration and exploration of the San Francisco alt-metal greats. Here we prove that history’s greatest band landed more than one commercial hit (crossword answer: “Epic” natch), we revel in FNM’s embarrassing wealth of winning album tracks (themselves often fit for chart topping), and we dip into the staggering best of the b-sides (ditto). Along the way, we survey the context of FNM’s big break (amid similarly seminal acts Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, and Ween) to the post-Nevermind, panic-based music commerce in which the brilliantly versatile, fearless powerhouse band operated until their 1998 demise. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.

Song “The Last To Know”

Written by Patton (L); Gould, Patton, Bordin (M)

Released 1995

Appears onKing For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime album

Produced by Andy Wallace

Guitars by Trey Spruance (Secret Chiefs 3, Mr. Bungle)

Key lyric “Where it grows on trees/But never blooms/Where it hurts the least for whoever/Saw it first.”

Single? No.

The climate By the second-last song on King For A Day, Faith No More has spazzed, gurgled, and burst veins to surpass the RDA; “Last” commences the two-track process of closure and departure so listeners might exhale after weathering King‘s pitched battle with sanity. It’s also FNM’s most bittersweet moment — topping “Underwater Love” and “A Small Victory” — and the band’s most baldly human, unblustery lyric, one that cements the sense that the personal is displacing the universal in FNM music. In close-up, “Last” is a relationship song, a magnanimous admission that its author is damaged goods, a patient and smiling farewell. I get waaay verklempt. Sniff.

Awesome song elevated to supra-awesomeness by the final act guitar solo passage (at 3:03). The FNM veterans hoist Spruance to their shoulders here, and the new guy responds with two fistfuls of roman candles and a sparkly Macho Man duster. Behold the sound of Earth’s greatest band.

Didja know? There exists a super-cool 7 x 7″ collector’s box edition of King For A Day that scrambles its 14 songs among individual interviews and b-sides (incl. “I Wanna Fuck Myself”). Incidentally, I chose this moment to remind you of my approaching birthday. Are these facts connected? You decide!